


Skating Lessons

by embroiderama



Category: White Collar
Genre: Community: run_the_con, F/M, Ice Skating, Romance, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:50:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some skills that even Neal Caffrey hasn't mastered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skating Lessons

**Author's Note:**

> This was written today for [](http://run-the-con.livejournal.com/profile)[**run_the_con**](http://run-the-con.livejournal.com/) for [](http://florastuart.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://florastuart.livejournal.com/)**florastuart** 's prompt "winter." This story takes schmoop to a level of gooey romance, but I am not ashamed.

Sara watched as Neal inched his way out onto the ice. He was trying to act casual, but his eyes were wide and the hand that was so nonchalantly resting on the low wall bordering the ice was all tense tendons and gripping fingertips. She didn’t want him to see her watching so she turned and skated a few yards out toward the middle of the ice and did a simple spin, her muscles remembering how from all those middle school skating lessons. When she skated back, Neal was still trying to pretend that he wasn’t clinging to the wall. He skated a few steps, his fingertips trailing along the wall, but the angle of his skates was all wrong and she knew he was going to lose his balance before he did, but he recovered without falling and looked up at her with a smile as wobbly as his knees. “I meant to do that.”

Sara looped around and stood in front of him, skating backward. “So you really never ice skated before? I thought you just said that because you were trying to get out of this.”

“’Never’ wouldn’t be entirely accurate.” Neal looked up from his feet and grinned, then slipped and almost fell before catching himself. Sara reached out to steady him then backed off to avoid tripping him up worse with a collision.

“I thought the great Neal Caffrey was good at everything.”

“That’s what you were supposed to think.” Neal looked back up, steadier on his feet but apparently no more willing to stray from the security of the wall. “Now you know the truth.”

“Now I know,” Sara echoed, and it was supposed to be mocking because really? Neal Caffrey, international art thief, hadn’t needed to pick up the ability to ice skate in order to make a daring midnight escape in St. Petersburg or Oslo or somewhere else cold and frozen? After all, he was the man who’d driven her crazy for years with his ability to do all the wrong things just exactly right.

But the man in front of her wasn’t quite that same person. He was barely keeping his feet under him, he was wearing the wrong thing entirely, and his cheeks were pink from some combination of cold, embarrassment and exertion. And she loved him, she realized with a sudden rush of pressure in her chest. Beyond the fact that he could keep up with her in conversation and in bed , beyond the way he understood the world she worked in and why it was important to her, she just loved _him_ in a way she’d never imagined caring about anybody she hadn’t known since birth.

And Neal didn’t know how to ice skate because he was human and imperfect, and he never said much about his childhood but she had a feeling his mother hadn’t been the type who’d pay for lessons and drive him across town to the skating rink twice a week for four years. But Sara could teach him, if he wanted to learn. She maneuvered around until she was standing next to Neal and threaded her arm through his.

“Come on, let’s make it around the rink once, and then we can go inside and get hot chocolate. My treat.”

Neal laughed and transferred a bit of his weight from the wall to her. They started moving along, and Sara thought there were even odds that they’d end up on the ice in a tangle of skates with sore, frozen asses but then Neal fell into step with her and then made their slow and steady way to the end of rink. They clung to each other as they tottered across the rubbery floor to the snack bar, and Sara ordered two hot chocolates as she pulled off her gloves.

It was terrible, really, made from a mix and cloyingly sweet with tiny sponge-like marshmallows, served in Styrofoam cups and so hot that it scalded her chilled lips. Both of them had palates that were too good for instant garbage, but after the first few sips her taste buds gave up the protest and it was delicious. It tasted like winter and childhood, and from the soft way Neal was smiling as he drank his own cup she thought that maybe this was something they had in common. As different as their lives had been before they found their separate ways to the White Collar offices of the FBI, maybe it could all be stripped away to leave snow days home from school and Swiss Miss and hot tap water in a coffee mug.

She put her hand on Neal’s face, felt his skin still cold from the breeze outside, and pulled him in for a kiss. “If you leave like that again,” she said into his ear, “if you do that to me again, I will track you down, and I will _hurt_ you.”

Neal went still for a second then took her hand and stroked his thumb back and forth as he pulled back enough to look her in the eye. “Repo,” he said, and then he swallowed hard and blinked for a long moment until she almost wanted to pull away. “I love you, too.”


End file.
